Though her voice was cool, it still carried the clear brightness unique to a young girl.
Shane already had a rough guess.
He turned toward the sound.
The newcomer stood there holding a long sheathed katana in one hand, already in a familiar opening stance.
That neat black hair, along with the signature oversized white butterfly ribbon on top of her head, made her identity easy to guess.
"Kagura. It's me."
Shane pointed at his own face, sounding a little helpless.
He never would have expected that the first time he came home after so long, Erza's treasured disciple would mistake him for a suspicious intruder.
Hearing that, Kagura did not lower her guard at once.
She tilted her head slightly and stared at Shane with wide eyes, as though searching hard through her memory for something.
Do you really need that long to remember? Shane waved the little hoe in his hand in protest, mildly annoyed.
He hadn't met Kagura that many times back then, sure—but he had recognized her at a glance.
And yet after studying him for a moment, Kagura suddenly nodded, as if she had finally convinced herself.
"So it's Shane…"
"Right, right." Just as Shane was about to relax, thinking the misunderstanding had cleared up, the girl's gaze suddenly turned cold.
"No!"
"Master's house has always only been lived in by the two of us. You really are some thief pretending to be him!"
Before she even finished speaking, magic exploded around her.
"Unforgivable Grudge — Blade Form!"
Kagura shouted low and rushed forward like an arrow loosed from a bow.
She did not draw the sword. Instead, she brought the still-sheathed blade down from above, cutting straight toward Shane's chest with a howl of wind.
"Wait—hold on! That's fast!"
Faced with such an unreasonable ambush, Shane instinctively moved to dodge to the side.
But then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the flowerbed behind him—the one he had just planted.
He forcibly stopped himself.
If he dodged, the whole bed would be ruined.
His thoughts turned, and the Class Card he was using immediately switched to Saber.
Magic surged through his palm, and a heavy black blade instantly materialized.
Clang—
The black blade rose just in time to block the sheath's descending strike.
Shane couldn't help shouting, "You literally just said my name, didn't you?!"
Kagura did not answer.
Her wrist flipped with smooth precision, changing her grip from holding to lifting, then she twisted her waist and slammed the sheathed sword down again.
"Unforgivable Grudge — Force Form!"
Before the strike had even fully landed, the sheer pressure made the ground beneath them crack from the weight.
"You're not even drawing the blade?"
Shane had no intention of letting her wreck the yard.
With a flick of his left hand, two chains shot out like venomous snakes, wrapping around Kagura's right arm and yanking her off balance.
Then the black blade rose once more and caught the blow squarely.
CLANG!!!
The metallic crash that exploded through the yard was deafening.
A dense shock ran back through the blade, and Shane's heart jolted in surprise.
"That force… there's magic mixed into the sword form. Gravity?"
He immediately grasped the trick hidden in Kagura's technique.
He hadn't expected that the little girl who used to cling to Erza nonstop had now reached this level of strength.
"So Erza's actually pretty good at teaching disciples," Shane admitted inwardly.
But Kagura's offense did not stop just because her attack had been checked.
"Unforgivable Grudge — Slash Form!"
With a clear, sharp cry, the girl tore free of the chains, and her sheathed sword became a storm of ferocious afterimages, pouring down on Shane like a violent rain.
"If you keep being this unreasonable, then even if you're Erza's disciple, I'll still have to teach you a proper lesson for her!"
Seeing that she refused to let up and that even the flowers and plants nearby were starting to suffer under the pressure of her sword, Shane finally felt a flash of irritation.
He knew Kagura had never been especially close to him, but after being apart this long, was there really no way to talk first without immediately going for blood?
"Slash!"
Her answer was another rapid strike, with no hesitation at all.
"…"
Shane's expression darkened completely.
"So you're not listening, huh?"
He snorted. In an instant, blazing heart-flame ignited around him, and his magic surged like boiling magma.
The moment Kagura saw the burst of magic around Shane, her back tightened. Her instincts screamed danger.
"Gravity sup—"
She tried to cast a spell at once to interrupt him.
Too late.
As his magic swallowed the space, the world before Kagura's eyes twisted.
The clean yard, the sunlight, the breeze—all of it was stripped away.
In their place was a barren wasteland filled with shattered swords and burning crimson fire.
Shhk-shhk-shhk!
Then the horrifying field of blades inside the boundary poured down on Kagura without restraint.
"Ugh…"
A muffled cry escaped her, and all strength vanished from her legs.
By the time her awareness snapped back, the world had already returned to the familiar yard.
Kagura had collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath, sweat dampening the strands of hair stuck to her cheeks.
It felt as if her whole body had just been sliced over and over by hundreds—no, thousands—of invisible blades.
Fine, pale red marks covered every patch of exposed skin. They had not broken the flesh, but a dense, stinging pain pulsed from all of them.
"Calm down now?"
Shane dismissed the black blade with a casual flick, dusted off his hands, and looked down at her coolly.
This girl was about the same age as Wendy, so how had their personalities ended up so completely different?
Compared to Wendy's polite, obedient nature, Kagura really was not adorable at all.
"Mm…"
Kagura bit her lower lip and stubbornly used her sheathed sword to brace herself against the ground, trying to force herself back up.
But that terrifying sword barrage had already drained her completely.
Her arms trembled a few times before she dropped back down again in defeat.
"Take this as my thanks for that unique little welcome ceremony."
Shane snorted, stepped forward, grabbed the back of Kagura's collar like fate itself had a handle there, and lifted her off the ground like a chick.
Kagura flushed with humiliation and anger, kicking her legs helplessly in midair as she tried to resist the shameful treatment.
Shane ignored her entirely and strode straight into the living room, then tossed her onto the sofa with a thump.
Bang.
Handled that roughly, Kagura pressed her lips together in grievance.
She wanted to protest loudly, but when she remembered that she had been the one to start the fight, the complaint died in her throat.
So instead, she simply hugged the sheathed sword to herself, turned away in a sulking huff, and offered Shane only the back of her stubborn head—a very clear refusal to communicate.
Looking at this little hedgehog curled up and stewing in silence, Shane found himself both annoyed and amused.
He dragged over a chair, sat down beside the sofa, and finally asked the question he genuinely wanted answered.
"Hey. Tell me something… why do you hate me so much?"
He really was curious.
Sure, he had teased her now and then in the past, but as far as he knew, he had never done anything outrageous enough to deserve this level of hostility.
So where exactly had this immediate, sword-drawing enmity even come from?
"…"
The figure on the sofa did not move.
Just as Shane thought she might really intend to play dead to the bitter end, a muffled voice came from the couch.
Kagura's fingers were twisting together, and even she seemed to realize the reason was embarrassing to say out loud.
"Because… I was afraid that once you came back, Master would never pay attention to me again…"